The Generalitat creates the pilot plan office to implement the Universal Basic Income

The Generalitat has created the Office of the Pilot Plan to Implement the Universal Basic Income, one of the measures included in the agreements between the pro-independence parties for the investiture and which is directed by the sociologist Sergi Raventós. The Universal Basic Income is a monetary allocation equivalent to the poverty line that is based on three principles: individuality, universality, and unconditionality. Therefore, everyone receives it. As it is a social policy measure for access to income and a mechanism for wealth redistribution, it could address various problems such as poverty, unemployment, job insecurity, gender inequality, psychological distress, and the stress generated by economic insecurities and difficulties.

In the next two years, this Government office (attached to the Department of the Presidency) will lead a pilot test that will be carried out in two segments of the population and will serve to analyze the viability of the measure and how it could be applied throughout Catalonia.

Catalonia, with data from 2020, had 26.3% of its population at risk of poverty or social exclusion, and if we refer to childhood, we find 35.9% of children under 18 years old at risk of poverty or social exclusion. The Generalitat's initiative, therefore, aims to analyze this closer reality and will join the set of tests for the application of this income that have been carried out worldwide for many years, such as in Canada, USA, Africa, India, Finland, Netherlands, Barcelona, Germany, Brazil, or South Korea, among others.

The pillars of the Universal Basic Income

The Universal Basic Income has been discussed for many years, mainly in more specialized and academic contexts. In recent years, and especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, articles, manifestos from social movements, and also the support of entities and personalities have increased, making it easier for increasingly broad sectors of the population to approach a political measure that will be very present in our societies in the coming years.

Basic income is not a grant, a subsidy, or a conditional social protection system. There is no need to prove a certain state of poverty, be looking for work, or have lost it. Unconditionality is a distinctive characteristic of this type of income. It makes it different from all unemployment benefits, minimum poverty incomes, the Minimum Living Income, or the current Guaranteed Citizenship Income. It is received before entering a situation of poverty; it is preventive. It is not received when you have already fallen into poverty or extreme poverty.

With basic income, there is no need to prove a certain state of poverty, be looking for work, or have lost it

A second advantage of the income is that it avoids the stigmatization of recipients. There is no need to identify oneself as poor, sick, disabled, etc. It has been studied that there is a proportion of people who do not access conditional subsidies due to access difficulties, lack of knowledge, not having all the supporting documentation, and also not wanting to give explanations about their lives.

Avoiding the "poverty trap"

And another advantage is that the universal basic income would allow overcoming the problem known as the "poverty trap," which occurs when people who receive a subsidy stop and rule out seeking paid work with a similar salary because it would mean losing the aforementioned subsidy, and difficulty in recovering it in case of job loss.

In the context of the current labor market, replacing and giving up a stable, periodic, and regular subsidy for a probably unstable and poorly paid salary from an often precarious occupation does not seem like the most opportune and rational option. With this income, being unconditional, working in a paid job would not imply losing it. We can accumulate several incomes, and if they exceed a certain threshold, we will have to settle accounts with the tax system.